Worcester skybridge project might resurface

City Manager Edward M. Augustus Jr. says he cannot give a definitive answer one way or another. What he will say, though, is a qualified "maybe."

The so-called skybridge, now a vision, is an elevated pedestrian walkway that would connect the Hilton Garden Inn with the DCU Center and the municipal parking garage on Major Taylor Boulevard.

The project's design called for a glass-enclosed, elevated walkway — 274 feet long and 10 feet wide — connecting the third level of the 1,000-space parking garage, sloping gently down to the second floor of the 200-room Hilton Garden Inn across the street, and rising again to hook up with the second floor of the DCU Center.

The bridge was to be supported by 13 pairs of cables radiating from the top of a 150-foot pylon next to the hotel.

The original estimate, from when the project was first broached in 2003, pegged the cost of the skybridge at about $2.5 million.

But after publicly bidding the project three times, and with cuts in scope and value engineering, the lowest bids the city could get for the project came in at around $8 million.

That was simply too high of a price tag for the city.

In 2007, then-City Manager Michael V. O'Brien pulled the plug on the project, saying it was too costly for the city at a time when it was dealing with significant cutbacks in municipal services and employee layoffs because of the economic chaos that existed. His decision had the support of the City Council.

Since then, the skybridge project had pretty much fallen off the radar.

That is why it came as a surprise when state Sens. Harriette L. Chandler, D-Worcester, and Michael O. Moore, D-Millbury, recently hinted that the project might be back. In a joint press release issued earlier this month, they announced having secured $5 million in state funding for the final phase of the DCU Center expansion project.

Among the several components of the final phase they mentioned the skybridge project.

"Construction of a skybridge connecting the facility (DCU Center) to an adjacent hotel, increasing the capacity of both the hotel and facility," the press release stated.

Another sign the skybridge project might be revived was when Mr. Augustus said he wanted to double the city's borrowing capacity — from $30 million to $60 million — for financing improvements in and around the DCU Center.

He sought and received authorization from the City Council Tuesday to file a home rule petition to amend the existing DCU Finance District, which was created in 2006, by expanding the district to include other areas of the city.

Under the law that created it, certain tax revenues generated in the district and collected by the state — hotel, meals and sales taxes — are directed back to the city to finance the bonds for improvements to the DCU Center.

By expanding the scope of the special district, Mr. Augustus said, the additional tax revenues that will be brought in from there will increase the city's borrowing capacity to fund capital improvements to the DCU Center.

It looked like the ground work was indeed being laid to jumpstart the skybridge project.

But as legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey used to say, here's "the rest of the story." It has to do with the lawsuit the owner of the Hilton Garden Inn filed against the city in 2012.

As part of the Land Disposition Agreement the city reached with the developer of the hotel in 2003, there was a provision that called for construction of elevated pedestrian walkways from the Major Taylor Boulevard parking garage to the hotel and from the hotel to the convention center portion of the DCU Center. It was to be built through a public-private partnership.

The hotel developer also entered into a separate parking agreement with the Worcester Redevelopment Authority, which built the Major Taylor Parking Garage, for the use of that garage.

The WRA agreed to reserve and dedicate 130 parking spaces in the garage for guests having business at the hotel, and it also agreed to keep available for reservation on a day-to-day basis an additional 170 spaces.

But last year it was revealed that the owner of the hotel, Monarch Enterprises, had not paid more than $700,000 in parking fees it owes for use of the municipal garage on Major Taylor Boulevard because the city has not met its obligation to have a pedestrian bridge built connecting the downtown hotel with the DCU Center and the parking garage.

The city has had ongoing pre-litigation negotiations with Monarch over the skybridge and parking fees in the hope of being able to reach some kind of mutual agreement.

"It pretty much comes down to finding parking solutions for the hotel," Mr. Augustus said in a recent interview.

In other words, depending on the outcome of the negotiations, there may or may not be a need for the skybridge. Thus, the city manager's qualified "maybe" answer regarding the revival of the skybridge project.

The manager did point out, however, that the cost of the skybridge project may not be as high as a few years ago, largely because the price of steel has dropped since then.

Contact Nick Kotsopoulos at nicholas.kotsopoulos@telegam.com. Follow him on Twitter @NCKotsopoulos